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Subway Car Accelerometer

To counter subway car driver accelerater pedal communication disorder
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This would be a candle flame Accelerometer for subway cars so that standing passengers could more accurately observe the actual acceleration of a subway car and thus maintain a better ballance.

The subway cars in my city accelerate and deccelerate unevenly - I am guessing this is because the poor subway drivers have no one to talk to all day and nothing to look at except for a dark tunnell and so they end up communicating in the only way they can, with their accelerator foots (or would that be feet?). The response that they receive through this kind of communication would come in the form of kick back from the ballancing readjustment that the people on the train excecute in response to the acceleration vagaries. The response would probably depend on how many people are on the train and how many of them are standing up -- and how strong their readjustment to the change in acceleration is. But I am convinced there is some kind of communication going on there. I would like to be able to communicate more fluently with these poor lonely subway car drivers and so would like to reccommend to the subway system that they install accelerometers in each car to make communicationn more visual and less of an inner ear thing. The accellerometers could be simple candle flame accelerometers (see link) or, even better, just a stick on a spring with the movement dampened by foam, so that when the train accelerated more the stick pointed toward the back of the train.

JesusHChrist, Mar 05 2006

candle flame accelerometer http://www.physicsc.../circles/u6l1b2.gif
[JesusHChrist, Mar 05 2006]

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       Your link needs to be edited - take out the break before "circles".   

       <later> - ahh, that's better.
lurch, Mar 05 2006
  

       Once the subway car accelerates, your own inner ear should tell you something's up, but that's already too late to help you to keep your balance, as the nearest pole recedes before your outstratched fingers, and you hurtle back onto the people behind you.   

       You need to be braced *before* sudden accelerations or decelerations, so you want some indicator that shows the driver's *intent*. (And yes, I do have a certain amount of experience on keeping and/or losing my balance on the subway.)
DrCurry, Mar 05 2006
  

       Hmm, I just have this intuition, and maybe it's wrong, that if there were something to keep your eye on that was lagging a bit behind the movement of the train, that it would make it easier to ballance.
JesusHChrist, Mar 05 2006
  

       I was wondering if a Segway could help, but on thinking it through, I reasoned that the Segway would try to keep you in the same spot relative to the track.
Ling, Mar 05 2006
  

       Maybe a small metal track running down the middle of the floors of the cars with a small steel marble in each track.
jellydoughnut, Mar 05 2006
  

       I seem to recall listening for the sound of the motors.
baconbrain, Mar 05 2006
  

       A device could be rigged to tell the passengers not when the train was speeding up, but when the conductator was pulling the throttle. Or whatever he/she does to speed the thing up.
jellydoughnut, Mar 05 2006
  

       How about a subway car mannequin which is loosely attached to the floor and falls over, thus making you feel less embarrassed when you do, too?
phundug, Mar 06 2006
  


 

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